An encounter with wild elephants.

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The Sanctuary: Although Periyar is a tiger reserve no one I talked to had ever seen a tiger there and the main attraction were the elephants. Periyar is situated in the hills of the Western ghats with a lake at the top. Most safaris are by boat and you usually see wildlife early morning or in the evening when they come out to the lake. There is also a nature walk organized by the tourism dept in the forest.

The Adventure: After 3 hours of walking through the forest we had almost completely given up on seeing any elephants. We stopped near the lake to take some snaps when suddenly I saw a herd of elephants crossing behind us. One of the young elephants stopped and turned towards us and my first instinct was to pull out my camera and get a closer look. Before I could do that the young elephant flared its ear flaps, raised its trunk and gave out a deafening call. I heard someone call out in the distance behind me, I turned around... our trek guide was running away at top speed! He literally had taken off, leaving the rest of us looking around a little confused. Within a matter of seconds it hit all of us... the elephant was going to charge us and for a moment I thought about diving into the lake but countless hours of animal planet had taught me that elephants were accomplished swimmers. Now we were all running, with our supposed guide at least 50 feet ahead of us. He didn't stop running for a good 5-6 minutes. Once we stop, he tells us how lucky we were and now finally decides to inform us that wild elephants can be very dangerous and that there had been deaths by trampling at the park before. Some guide he was! We were now way off our track and we had to go the rest of the way through extremely thick forest riddled with spiders and we saw a couple of snakes too. Eventually we made it back to the bamboo raft which took us out of the park.

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Photos

The boat safaris leave.
This was like a jurassic park moment, when you set off in your boats into the park.

Deer
First signs of wildlife.

My hut
This is where I stayed

Bamboo raft.
Just before the nature walk.

The calm before
This was just before the elephants arrive, notice our guide, hes looking in the direction they come from. He takes off as soon as he sees them